MUNICH, Germany – Wacker Chemie AG, Munich, Germany, is expanding its presence in Mexico and Brazil. The company is extending its existing technical center in São Paulo, Brazil, and creating a new technical center in Mexico City, Mexico. At the same time, the group’s international training center, the WACKER ACADEMY, will be expanded at the São Paulo site, and a new academy will be opened in Mexico City. Both projects are scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2013.

The expansion of the group’s technical center in Jandira, Brazil, near São Paulo, focuses mainly on labs for dispersible polymer powders, which are used in dry-mix mortars for concrete applications, tile adhesives and sealing slurries. In Mexico, polymer binders are the focal point of the new technical center. The facility will house the new offices of the local sales subsidiary Wacker Mexicana S.A. and the R&D labs for dispersible polymer powders and vinyl acetate-ethylene copolymer (VAE) dispersions.

The technical center in Mexico will support customers in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, the Caribbean, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Bolivia. The technical center in Brazil will continue as the South American hub for customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.